


uncharted territory

by ratpoet



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bisexual Lip, M/M, idek right now, the tense is weird throughout, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 18:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3619719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratpoet/pseuds/ratpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lip doesn’t know exactly what prompted him to go visit Joaquin in the hospital again. He’d made sure he was okay and hadn’t spilled on Lip already, so really, there wasn’t any need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	uncharted territory

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't really know why I wrote this but this fandom doesn't have nearly enough bi!Lip fanfics. So...yeah.  
> It's my first fic so be nice! :)

Lip doesn’t know exactly what prompted him to go visit Joaquin in the hospital again. He’d made sure he was okay and hadn’t spilled on Lip already, so really, there wasn’t any need.

But maybe Lip goes _because_ Joaquin hadn’t spilled on him. Different places, same rules -snitching was off the table, no matter what. It was one of the only Gallagher rules they’d managed to keep, even after they had broken the rest of their rules- stick together, look out for each other and even the simple ‘be there’. Lip felt like he’s been missing milestones since the day he was born- first birthday party, first parent teacher meeting, first pep up talk by his father, first patching up of wounds by his mother- all replaced with shitty things like first shoplifting incident, first successful scam, first taste of beer, first disappointment by Frank, first French exit by Monica. And the better ones, he had to admit he’d hit some good milestones too (even by pure fluke)- first Gallagher style party in the backyard, first pat on his back by a fiercely proud Fiona, first look of adoration and admiration by Ian, first time he beat kids two or three grades above him to win first place in a competition, first this-must-be-love with Karen (even though that turned to shit so fast it had to break some sort of record, even in their house of perpetual break-ups and regret-filled one night stands).

And recently, Lip had been missing milestones more than ever- he was never there to see Carl fall in love, Debbie struggling with growing up, Fiona making an actual effort to get her shit back together. And most of all, he was never there for Ian when he needed him most. He wasn’t all Ian had, he knew that (sometimes all too well), but Lip had somehow always thought he’d have Ian’s back and vice versa all his life. What happened to “name a single time I’ve let you down”- he asked himself this question at least ten times a day. And then he promptly looked for a distraction. Dealing with his problems responsibly wasn’t something he’d ever learnt, not from Fiona or Monica and sure as hell not from Frank.

The point is, Lip needs a distraction. So he goes to visit Joaquin, because he really does need a distraction, but also maybe because he doesn’t know where he lost all of them but it seems he doesn’t really have any friends anymore- only professors who show him art and random kids who want their weed back and occasionally Amanda- except he’d even lost her, now.

 Joaquin is all he has right now, and that might be kind of sad, but Lip really couldn’t care less. He had enough shit to deal with without roaming around trying to ‘make friends’.

He doesn’t know what he was expecting, exactly, when he walks into the hospital room, nose screwed up against the painfully familiar smell of disinfectant and eyes searching out any spot of colour because he really, really hates the white walls that look so much like the end of something but not enough like a clean slate.

But he sure as hell wasn’t expecting Joaquin to be asleep when he walks in. He can hear him snoring softly and he just looks so… so peaceful and innocent and _young,_ just like all the Gallagher’s did when they were sleeping, that Lip can't help it- he reaches out a hand to stroke Joaquin’s hair. Joaquin stirs at the contact and his eyes flicker open, and just like that, the spell is broken. Lip cautiously moves away and sits down, avoiding Joaquin’s eyes. He hopes Joaquin won’t mention it, because Lip won’t have an answer if he does.

“Hey,” Joaquin says, and Lip can just about hear the smile in his voice.

“Yeah, hi,” Lip replies, steeling himself as he looks up and- yup, Joaquin’s smiling. Lip doesn’t know why but he smiles back, even though he doesn’t remember the last time he ‘smiled back’ at someone who wasn’t a Gallagher. Except he thinks Joaquin is like a Gallagher in ways Lip can't fathom, but can just sense. Something about his tendency to fuck things up for himself, probably, but it’s more than that. He can't really put his finger on why he feels this kinship, this belonging toward Joaquin. It’s weird; disconcerting, even.

“How come you’re here?” Joaquin asks. Lip can hear the genuine curiosity in his voice, the actual wonder at anyone wanting to be with him willingly. Immediately, the protectiveness kicks in because that insecurity, that justified disbelief is so familiar to Lip- he’s heard it in Fiona’s voice when she tells him she got the job she wanted, in the way Ian talks about Mickey, even now, and he’s heard it in his own voice when he actually cuts a break for once, carefully concealed underneath all the fake bravado and contempt, but still very much there.

“I just wanted to see you,” Lip answers, honestly for once, because he can’t bear to hear that mixture of insecurity and disbelief anymore. And it’s true, because maybe it wasn’t anything else, maybe it was just this simple, but Lip doesn’t know anything but messy and complicated and difficult, so he’s actually surprised by his own words.

Joaquin snorts, before realizing that Lip’s voice had lacked the sneering sarcasm he was so well-acquainted with, and then he blinks. Lip thinks he might even pinch himself like someone in a movie, but thankfully, Joaquin simply breaks into a tentative smile. They fall into a weird silence, not exactly awkward, but wired with a strange tension, something Lip can't really identify. He had never been good at reading people- he’d rather read textbooks- but he’d learnt a lot from his years in the Southside, so it was strange in itself for him to not be able to read the situation.

So much practice, and for what? To hit a wall with Joaquin?

Finally, Joaquin asks, “So, uh, who was that hot chick with the brown hair? The one who called the ambulance?”

“You remember her?” Lip asks. He didn’t expect him to, seeing as how he was high off his ass and screeching with pain, at the time, but Joaquin seemed hell-bent on surprising Lip at every turn.

“Yeah, man. You don’t forget someone like her,” Joaquin says, lips quirked into a smile. For some reason, that makes a knot of anger and something that felt suspiciously like jealousy develop in Lip’s stomach. He tells himself it’s just natural instinct- protect what’s yours, even if it’s just a fuck buddy- but that’s not it and he knows it. He wishes he didn’t but he does. Lip hates being a genius sometimes- he is definitely not ready for this shit. So instead, he distracts himself.

He’s always been good at hiding from the truth anyway.

“You definitely don’t,” Lip answers with a smirk, because if that burning in his throat is jealousy (he’s not saying it is, but.) then he was damn well going to give back as good as he got. Even if some part of him didn’t want to turn this into a competition, because Lip was trying really hard to ignore the parts of himself that were just begging to get him into deeper shit.

“You’re banging her?” Joaquin asks, a little too incredulously for Lip’s liking. But the surprise is masking something else, something harder and more intense, and the only reason Lip can tell is because he knows all about masking emotions.

“Yeah,” Lip answers, smirk firmly in place, but somehow the satisfaction he thought he’d get from the slight flash of something- anger or jealousy; Lip’s not sure- on Joaquin’s face never comes.

 “But, you know, she’s a Professor and I'm taking her classes, so I'm not sure how long it’s going to last,” Lip says. He doesn’t know why, because he never turns down an opportunity to brag about how much sex he’s getting, but if it was going to be a night of firsts all around, then who was Lip to deny the plans of fate? (Except he doesn’t believe in fate. But that’s just a minor detail.)

Joaquin’s face softens at the comment and Lip thinks it’s maybe worth it.

“Your professor? That’s messed up, man!” Joaquin says, grinning openly. Except it seems a tiny bit fake, somehow.

“Says the junkie,” Lip says, smiling slightly, before he can think about it.

“Says the dealer,” Joaquin replies easily. Lip realizes he’s missed this- being able to joke about fucked up things without people taking offense or looking shocked.

“The _friend_ of the dealer,” Lip says, mock affronted. “There’s a difference.”

“Whatever you say,” Joaquin says, still smiling, but the words carry weight and Lip could never deal with heavy words, unspoken promises or invisible assurances, so he deals with it the only way he knows how- by avoiding it altogether.

“You have no idea how messed up it actually is, man,” Lip says, and when Joaquin raises his eyebrows, adds, “Her husband walked in on me.”

“What did he do?” Joaquin asks, eyes and smile both widening. Lip thinks the expression suits him, before realizing that he isn’t supposed to be thinking like that.  

“He kissed his wife and asked me how I wanted my eggs,” Lip says.

Joaquin shakes his head and says, “Is that supposed to be some sort of rich-shit euphemism for ‘I'll beat the fuck out of you’?”

“Possibly,” Lip says, snorting, “but the dude was serious. He made me an omelette and then offered me a crepe.”

 “You’re kidding me,” Joaquin says, but his smile is intact.

“Much as I wish I was, that actually happened. And then both of them came and asked me how they could make me ‘more comfortable’,” Lip says. Honestly, he’s still kind of in shock from all that- it wasn’t easy for him to wrap his mind around the concept of an open marriage. Mostly because he’d had those kinds of relationships- just fuck buddies, but ‘ghetto married’ nevertheless, and it never worked out. He couldn’t imagine that extending into marriage. He just couldn’t.

Joaquin starts laughing at his comment. And it starts off really innocuous, just a chuckle, but soon Joaquin is spluttering for air, and it sounds almost like a _giggle_ , and Lip can't help it- he joins in the laughter.

Looking at Joaquin there, his eyes bright and tears streaming down his face, Lip feels something in his chest constrict. And it’s so strange, not the feeling in itself, but in how familiar it is, and in everything it entails.

Because it’s the same feeling he used to get when Karen made a dirty joke and flipped him off when he acted shocked, when Mandy texted him to meet her in her room as soon as Ian left, when Amanda’s soft hair brushed against his face.

The same feeling of fucking contentment, of wanting to freeze the moment and keep it somewhere safe- except safe places didn’t exist and the Laws of Physics forbade time from freezing.

But the context is all wrong, because this is Joaquin. Not Karen or Mandy or Amanda. Not his best friend, or his brother’s best friend, or his fuck-buddy-cum-roommate. This isn’t some crush, for God’s sake.

But Lip doesn’t even really know what Joaquin is. He hates not knowing, has hated it since he was a kid and Fiona had no answers, only empty promises and bullshit pearls of wisdom which were actually clichés lifted straight from cheesy movies and assurances repeated so many times Lip knows them all by heart. People were always surprised when they found out that Lip the lazy asshole was actually smart. They didn’t know he only made an effort because at least his textbooks had answers- albeit to the all wrong questions. Lip used to think that any answers were better than none but knowing trigonometry and calculus won’t tell you why your mother is bipolar or your father is a complete piece of shit and how could Lip find a way to cure them when a cure didn’t even exist? It was an equation with too many variables and not enough solutions.

“The actual fuck, man,” Joaquin remarks, when the spluttering and giggling finally stop.

“That’s actually a pretty good summary of my life,” Lip says, still smiling, even though everything was shit and he didn’t have answers for any of it. As usual.

“Everything’s shitty,” Joaquin says, not like it hurts him or he wants to change it, but just simply stating it. Plain facts. But Lip knows you can never get used to it- you can only pretend you have.

It startles Lip a little- how Lip and Joaquin are somehow on the same wavelength, already in sync, without even knowing it. Same rules, and now the same thoughts. And the ever-present thread of being shit on by life binding them together inexplicably.

“Tell me about it,” Lip says, and they share a smile at their shitty lives. He waits for Joaquin to ask him what exactly was so shitty in his life, is already deciding what to tell him, what to hide, how much he can share without, well, things turning shittier. 

He doesn’t know when pushing Joaquin away became equable to things turning shittier- though it’s really not that weird to not want to lose a friend.

(He tells himself that that’s all, that’s it. Whether he believes his own words or not is a different thing.)

But the question never comes. Lip’s not sure what to make of that, but he can't deny the relief pooling in his gut, not when it is so potent. He doesn’t want to tell Joaquin anything yet, not because his life is a secret but because this, this right here is a clean slate. A chance to start over. And sue Lip for wanting it, but he gets it so rarely that he isn’t going to pass up that chance.

Joaquin doesn’t know his history, and Lip knows that maybe he would have hated that a year or two ago, but he’s starting to value new beginnings, unencumbered by everything he’s been through, and he thinks now he can finally start letting go of his grudges and spite, just a little. Joaquin can't hold who Lip used to be against him and neither can he expect anything from Lip, not when Joaquin doesn’t even really know Lip yet.

Lip is scared by how… how oddly _freeing_ that is, because the last time he felt ‘free’ was when he was four and nobody knew he was a genius. He doesn’t think it’s possible for him to feel free. But this is the freedom he’s been seeking since forever, really. College couldn’t give him this. And Lip doesn’t know what to make of Joaquin giving him this, but he’s glad nevertheless.

Lip realizes with a start that he’s been staring at Joaquin all this while, and with another start, that Joaquin has been staring right back. The silence between them isn’t tense, this time, or awkward- it’s nothing at all, really. It’s just there, and maybe there’s an undercurrent of something in the air, but for once Lip doesn’t try to analyze it. He just lets it be.   

They hold each other’s gazes and it’s surprisingly okay- Lip doesn’t even need to look away. But Lip feels something coming, because he’s never had anything good that lasted long enough, and he’s right- Joaquin opens his mouth to say something but Lip never gets to hear what it is as the shrill beep of his phone punctures the moment.

Lip sighs and takes his phone out, only to see a text from Fiona- ‘call me ASAP.’ It has to be an emergency, or Fiona wouldn’t have texted him. She tries her best to keep Lip in college and a good distance away from the Gallagher house. So he knows it’s something bad- the last time she’d texted him was when Ian had stolen Mickey’s baby.

Lip is seized by the irrational urge to just ignore her message and carry on pretending that everything was fine, as if he doesn’t know Fiona needs him.

But he can't do it, he never could, and he knows it. He can't stay away from the Gallaghers and he can't help them either. But he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.

“Sorry, man, I gotta go,” Lip says, and even he can hear the regret in his voice, it’s that obvious. It’s pathetic, how much of an effect Joaquin is having on Lip.

“The hot professor?” Joaquin asks, making no effort to hide his annoyance this time. The jealous look definitely suits him. Then Lip catches himself again.

“Nah… it’s a family emergency. I think. I don’t really know yet,” Lip says. Joaquin nods at him like he understands, because he probably does, and says, “You’d better go, then.”

Lip doesn’t leave immediately. He doesn’t really know why (is that even a surprise anymore?). Although if he’s being honest (and apparently, he is) he does know why. He doesn’t want to leave. And he’s not ready to admit why, yet, but this is progress, this is him choosing the road that was most certainly doomed and not caring about the consequences. This is him making a big fucking mistake- and knowing it. But he doesn’t care. He doesn’t.

Another shrill beep punctures the air. Lip can't put it off anymore- he has to leave. He gets up and says, “Okay,well, bye, I guess.” (That was definitely going down as the smoothest goodbye in history).

“Yeah, bye,” Joaquin says. And there’s a question there, a _will I see you again?_ that Lip doesn’t want to answer aloud, but when he smiles at Joaquin, he thinks he’s answered it anyway.  

So there it is again- an unspoken promise, a mutual agreement. But maybe it’s okay. Maybe Lip doesn’t mind, this time.

Lip knows he has a lot of shit to deal with, and his life was most likely going to go to shit as soon as he called Fiona, and there are lots of questions he has to answer about himself- questions he doesn’t even want to look in the face, honestly. So maybe, given all that, he has no right to be smiling as he takes out the phone to dial Fiona’s number.

But he smiles anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos give me life!
> 
> I'm on tumblr @ fiandvee.tumblr.com


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